The most widely reviewed film of the year with coverage from the National Enquirer to Parade Magazine to The New York Times. Based on the life of Bob Crane (Kinnear) who played Hogan on "Hogan's Heroes", this is the story of his rise and eventual fall as he dove into a world full of pornography and sex.
(22 votes)
2.
AUTO FOCUS is the story of Bob Crane (Greg Kinnear), who was the star of the television series Hogan's Heroes in the 1960s. Before he achieved that particular fame, Crane was a popular radio talk show host in Hollywood. His television work brought him a level of visibility and notoriety that he turned directly into sexual opportunity. Gallivanting with sleazy audiovisual salesman John Carpenter (Willem Dafoe), Crane built a life as a desperately addicted sex maniac. As the first home video cameras were invented, Carpenter and Crane began a prolific hobby of coercing girls to appear on tape while engaging in lewd sexual acts. The more intensely obsessed Crane became with his habit, the less his acting career mattered. He divorced his wife, allowing her custody of their two children, and remarried, having another son, only to divorce again. Meanwhile, his relentless sexual exploits became increasingly impersonal and mean-spirited. His public image suffered as he shamelessly made tasteless, sexualized remarks and got a reputation for openly displaying photographs of himself receiving oral sex. Paul Schrader's powerful, deeply effective, and darkly disturbing film makes a 180-degree transition as its story rolls out. What begins as a happy, colorful, naive portrayal of the entertainment industry becomes the nightmare of one man's disintegration in the face of temptation, money, and power.
(20 votes)
3.
Auto Focus captures the scandalous private life of Bob Crane, best known as the star of German POW camp sitcom Hogan's Heroes. Greg Kinnear plays the affable comic actor, who nursed an obsession with sex--specifically pornography, strippers, swinging, domination, and especially the videotaping of his own sexual exploits. His behaviour led to the downfall of two marriages and enmeshed Crane in a strangely symbiotic relationship with a video equipment salesman named John Carpenter (Willem Dafoe); Carpenter provided the technology, and Crane (through the power of his fame) provided the girls. Their friendship ultimately wore thin and may have led to Crane's gruesome death. Auto Focus is a lot like an episode of VH-1's Behind the Music, but with sex in the place of the usual downfall-causing drugs; though elegantly filmed, it doesn't delve too deeply into Crane's joy, and so never gets a genuine feel for his pain either. --Bret Fetzer
(21 votes)
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